banausic
[buh-naw-sik, -zik]
adjective
serving utilitarian purposes only; mechanical; practical: architecture that was more banausic than inspired.
RELATED WORDS
greedy, secular, temporal, sensual, profane, tedious, repetitious, boring, repetitive, dreary, humdrum, tiresome, dull, ho-hum, plodding, mundane, prosaic, banal, mediocre, pedantic
Nearby words
- banana split,
- bananaland,
- bananas,
- banaras,
- banat,
- banbridge,
- banbury,
- banbury cake,
- banbury tart,
- banc
Origin of banausic
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for banausic
The burghers began to tune the melodies of a new music: a banausic artisan song.
Women of the Teutonic Nations|Hermann Schoenfeld
banausic
adjective
Word Origin for banausic
C19: from Greek banausikos for mechanics, from baunos forge
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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banausic
"merely mechanical," coined 1845 from Greek banausikos "pertaining to mechanics," from banausos "artisan, mere mechanical," hence (to the Greeks) "base, ignoble;" perhaps literally "working by fire," from baunos "furnace, forge" (but Klein dismisses this as folk etymology and calls it "of uncertain origin").
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper